The first-time Ross 400 Club Seminar was held in October in Taichung, Taiwan, and was considered to be a celebration and an outstanding occasion for Fortune Taiwan and its group of broiler growers.

Eighty-nine farmers were recognized and received the prestigious Ross 400 Club Award at the event, which also incorporated a broiler seminar for 120 farmers who attended the function. The EPEF calculation is derived from a formula that multiplies livability by live broiler weight in kilograms, and then divides by the broiler age in days times the feed conversion ratio (FCR). That number is then multiplied by 100 to give the final EPEF score.

The performance data for the group was sourced from around 9 million broilers located on 219 farms and reached an average of 438 EPEF, which is remarkable and demonstrated the significant improvements made in FCR over the past two years in the region.

The Ross 400 Club is a country-specific program that recognizes the growers and all the hard work they put into managing flocks every day of the growing cycle, while also helping improve their knowledge and farming practices. It also encourages customers to capture the genetic potential available from the Ross birds, adopt new management techniques and also learn from others in the same industry. Good results help convince other farmers in the market what is achievable with the Ross 308.

“I am confident that this outstanding performance of the Fortune Taiwan broiler growers is based on their good feed quality and investment in housing and also on their deep understanding about broiler management. This lets them achieve acceptable profit levels even in tough market situations,” commented Dr. Chang Hee Lee, Ross Technical Service manager.

“The Ross 400 Club provided a great opportunity to promote the Ross breed and to show the outstanding performance and the ability of the bird to maximize profit in a commercial environment. It also enabled us to gather all the broiler farmers for a seminar on genetic change, nutrition and broiler management. The Ross 400 celebration was well supported by more than 120 broiler farmers from Taiwan and provided a good opportunity to exchange valuable ideas to achieve better results,” concluded Mr. Chuang, Chairman, Fortune Taiwan Breeding Company.

About Aviagen
Since 1923, Aviagen® has established itself as the world's leading poultry breeding company, developing pedigree lines for the production of commercial broiler chickens under the Arbor Acres®, Indian River®, and Ross® brand names. The Rowan Range® and Specialty Males® are specialty breeding stock from Aviagen that offer greater flexibility for customers to meet specific or niche market requirements. The company is based in Huntsville, Alabama, USA with a number of wholly-owned operations across the United Kingdom, Europe, Turkey, Latin America, India, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S., and joint ventures in Asia. Aviagen employs more than 3,900 people and has a distribution network serving customers in more than 100 countries.

For further information, please visit www.aviagen.com.